Culture Flashcards
Define culture
Knowledge, language, values, customs, and material objects pass to others over time
Compare material and non-material culture
Material: tangible artifacts, physical objects
Non-material: values, beliefs, and traditions
What are the features of culture?
Learned (values), shared (symbols), transmitted (intergenerational), cumulative, human, and sum total of all socially transmitted ideas
Explain the building blocks of culture
Values: general belief in right and wrong
Norms: specification of appropriate behaviour
Laws: codified norms
Sanctions: rewards and punishments
Define folkways
Customary behaviour, little to no consequences when broken (ex. against walking traffic, cutting in line)
Define mores
Carries serious moral condemnation, not in codified law (ex. infidelity, promise breaking)
Define cultural relativism
Belief that every culture has an intrinsic worth
Define ethnocentrism
Belief that the viewer’s culture is superior
Explain the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis
“Our language determines our thoughts”, language acts as an important symbol system for a culture
How are language and gender are related in Western culture?
Women use more modifiers/tag questions, women have more words for colours (and tasks related to stereotypes), women speak about their personal life more, men are not comfortable with that, men use imperative form/expletives more often
Define subculture
Groups in society with their own distinct values, norms, mores, folkways, etc.
Define counterculture
A type of subculture that is in opposition to the dominant culture (wish to change it; akin to activism)
